Kolkata, January 19: Leaders from abroad and national leaders will pay their final tribute to former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu here on Tuesday.
AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, BJP leader L K Advani, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and RJD leader Lalu Prasad will be among politicians who will be in town to pay homage to the late Basu during his final journey.
Bangladesh premier Sheikh Hasina will also be here along with her 30-member team. Nepalese prime minister Madhab Nepal is also likely to be here on Tuesday to pay his last respects to Basu.
Former Lok Sabha speaker P A Sangma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, urban development minister Jaipal Reddy and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda will also be there.
Elaborate arrangements have been made to enable dignitaries to pay their last respects to the communist leader who passed away on Sunday at a city hospital. Basu’s body will be kept at the state assembly from 10 am to 3 pm.
CPM state secretary Biman Bose told reporters on Monday that Basu’s body would proceed from a private mortuary at 7-30 am on Tuesday initially to CPM’s Alimuddin Street headquarters and be there till 9 am.
From the party headquarters, the body would be taken to Writers’ Buildings and kept there for a short while to enable chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and chief secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty to pay homage to Basu.
From Writers’ Buildings, the body will be taken to the state legislature where it will be kept till 3.30 pm, from where a procession will start with the body for the SSKM hospital where Basu’s body will be handed over to the hospital authorities for medical research. Basu had pledged his body to the hospital.
Following Basu’s pledge, the body will be handed over to the hospital authorities. West Bengal health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra held a meeting with the doctors at SSKM hospital on Monday to facilitate smooth handover of the body which will be used for medical research.
The consul-general of China in Kolkata, Mao Siwei, described Basu as “China’s great friend and India’s greatest communist leader.”
In a book kept at the CPM headquarters in Alimuddin Street to record condolence notes from the dignitaries, Siwei described Basu as a great friend of his country.
Meanwhile, West Bengal assembly Speaker Hasim Abdul Halim hinted on Monday that a portrait of the former chief minister might be put up in the legislature building soon.
—Agencies